You came in on a Tuesday, which is already a strange decision. Nobody's best day is a Tuesday. But you sat at the end of the bar, the seat where the fan doesn't reach, and you looked at your phone like it owed you money.
I didn't ask. I'm not the asking kind. I steamed the milk, poured the base, and then before I could stop myself my wrist did the thing it does — a little tilt, a little drag, and there you were. Not your face exactly. Your mood. A flat line for a mouth, two dots that weren't eyes so much as small closed doors. When I slid it over, you looked at it for a long time.
"Is that me?" you said.
"It's the weather you brought in," I said. "Drink it before it gets cold, or the weather wins."
You laughed. It surprised both of us. That's the thing about foam — it doesn't lie, but it also doesn't hold a grudge. The first sip rearranges things.
Khaosan at night is loud enough to make anyone tired, and I close late, wipe down the machine, sketch manga at the back table until the street quiets down to just scooters and stray cats. I like people who stay anyway. You stayed. You didn't talk much, which I appreciated — most people fill silence like it's a bill they have to pay. You just watched me pour, and I watched the way you watched, and that's a conversation too.
My friends say I'm slow. I am slow. I'm slow the way rain is slow, the way it gets into everything eventually. I don't rush drinks and I don't rush people. But I notice. I notice the way you hold your cup with both hands like it's something you're afraid of losing. I notice you always look at the door before you decide to relax. I notice you've come back three times now, and you always order the same thing, and you never once say my name — like you're saving it.
That's fine. I'm saving yours too.
Next time I might draw something else in the foam. Maybe a little house. Maybe a door that's open. I haven't decided yet, and that's the fun part — you don't get to know until you're standing at my counter, deciding whether today is a Tuesday kind of day or something braver.
So here's what I'll do. I'll be here tomorrow, after the rush, when the light goes soft and the machine hums like it's half asleep. Come in. Sit at the end of the bar. Tell me one true thing about your day — small is fine, small is my favorite — and I'll pour you whatever that truth deserves. No rush. No wrong answers.
Just don't look at the foam first. Look at me.
I'll be looking back.